07 - The Boarding House

a butcher's shop near Spring Gardens. But as soon as his father in law was dead, mister Mooney began to go to the devil. He drank, plundered the till ran headlong into debt. It was no use making him take the pledge. He was sure to break out again a few days after. By fighting his wife in the presence of customers, and by buying bad meat. He ruined his business. One night he went for his wife with the cleaver, and she had to sleep in a neighbor's house. After

that they lived apart. She went to the priest and got a separation from him with care of the children. She would give him neither money, nor food nor house room, and so he was obliged to enlist himself as a sheriff's man. He was a shabby, stooped, little drunkard with a white face and a white mustache, and white eyebrows penciled above his little eyes, which were veined and raw, and all day long he sat in the bailiff's room

waiting to be put on a job. Missus Mooney, who had taken what remained of her money out of the butcher business and set up a boarding house in Hardwick Street, was a big, imposing woman. Her house had a floating population made up of tourists from Liverpool and the Isle of Man and occasionally artistes from the music halls. Its resident population was made up of clerks from the city. She governed the house cunningly and firmly, knew when to give credit, when to be stern, and when to let

things pass. All the resident young men spoke of her as the Madam. Missus Mooney's young men paid fifteen shillings a week for board and lodgings, beer or stout at dinner excluded. They shared in common tastes and occupations, and for this reason they were very chummy with one another. They discussed with one another the chances of favorites and outsiders. Jack Mooney, the Madam's son, who was clerk to a commission agent in Fleet Street, had the reputation of being

a hard case. He was fond of using soldiers obscenities. Usually he came home in the small hours. When he met his friends, he always had a good one to tell them that he was always sure to be on to a good thing thing, that is to say, a likely horse or a likely artiste. He was also handy with the mits and sang comic songs. On Sunday nights, there would often be a reunion in Missus Mooney's front drawing room. The music hall artistes would oblige and Sheridan

played waltzes and polkas and vamped accompaniments. Polly Mooney, the Madam's daughter, would also sing. She sang I'm a naughty girl. You needn't sham you know I am. Polly was a slim girl of nineteen. She had light, soft hair and small full mouth. Her eyes, which were gray with a shade of green through them, had a habit of glancing upwards when she spoke with anyone, which made her look

like a little perverse madonna. Missus Mooney had first sent her daughter to be a typist in a corn factor's office, but as a disreputable sheriff Smell used to come every other day to the office asking to be allowed to say a word to his daughter. She had taken her daughter home again and set her to do housework. As Polly was very lively, the intention was to give her the run of the young men. Besides, young men like to feel that there is a young woman not very

far away. Polly, of course flirted with the young men, but missus Mooney, who was a shrewd judge, knew that the young men were only passing the time away, none of them meant business. Things went on so for a long time, and missus Mooney began to think of sending Polly back to typewriting. When she noticed that something was going on between Polly and one of the young men, she watched the pair and kept her own counsel. Polly knew she was being watched, but still her mother's persistent

silence could not be misunderstood. There had been no open complicity between mother and Dawe, no open understanding, But though people in the house began to talk of the affair. Still Missus Mooney did not intervene. Polly began to grow a little strange in her manner, and the young man was evidently perturbed. At last, when she judged it to be the right moment, Missus Mooney intervened. She dealt with moral problems as a cleaver deals with meat, and in

this case she had made up her mind. It was a bright Sunday morning of early summer, promising heat, but with a fresh breeze blowing. All the windows of the boarding house were open, and the lace curtains ballooned gently towards the street beneath the raised sashes. The belfry of George's Church sent out constant peals and worshippers, sinkly or in groups, traversed the little circus before the church, revealing their purpose by their self contained demeanor, no less than

by the little volumes in their gloved hands. Breakfast was over in the boarding house, and the table of the breakfast room was covered with plates on which lay yellow streaks of eggs, with morsels of bacon fat and bacon rind. Missus Mooney sat in the straw arm chair and watched the servant Mary remove the breakfast things. She made Mary collect the crusts and pieces of broken bread to help

make Tuesday's bread pudding. When the table was cleared the broken bread, collected, the sugar and butter safe under lock and key, she began to reconstruct the interview which she had had the night before with Polly. Things were as she had suspected. She had been frank in her questions, and Polly had been frank in her answers. Both had

been somewhat awkward. Of course, she had been made awkward by her not wishing to receive the news in too cavalier a fashion, or to seem to have connived, And Polly had been made awkward, not merely because a usions of that kind always made her awkward, but also because she did not wish it to be thought that, in her wise innocence, she had divined the intention behind her

mother's tolerance. Missus Mooney glanced instinctively at the little gilt clock on the mantelpiece as soon as she became aware through her reverie that the bells of George's Church had stopped ringing it was seventeen minutes past eleven. She would have lots of time to have the matter out with mister Darrin and then catch short twelve at Marlborough Street. She was sure she would win. To begin with, she had all the weight of social opinion on her side.

She was an outraged mother. She had allowed him to live beneath her roof, assuming that he was a man of honor, and he had simply abused her hospitality. He was thirty four or thirty five years of age, so that youth could not be pleaded as his excuse, nor could ignorance be his excuse. Since he was a man who had seen something of the world. He had simply taken advantage of Polly's youth and inexperience. That was evident. The question was what reparation would he make. There must

be reparation made in such a case. It is all very well for the man. He can go his ways as if nothing had happened, having had his moment of pleasure. But the girl has to bear the brunt. Some mothers would be content to patch up such an affair for a sum of money. She had known cases of it, but she would not do so. For her. Only one reparation could make up for the loss of her daughter's honor marriage. She counted all her cards again before sending Mary up to mister Dorn's room to say that she

wished to speak with him. She felt sure she would win. He was a serious young man, not rakish or loud voiced life like the others. If it had been mister Sheridan or mister Mead or Bantam Lyons, her task would have been much harder. She did not think he would face publicity. All the lodgers in the house knew something

of the affair. Details had been invented by some. Besides, he had been employed for thirteen years in a great Catholic wine merchant's office, and publicity would mean for him perhaps the loss of his job, Whereas if he agreed, all might be well. She knew he had a good screw, for one thing, and she suspected he had a bit of stuff put By nearly the half hour, she stood

up and surveyed herself in the pier glass. The decisive expression of her great florid face satisfied her, and she thought of some mothers she knew who could not get their daughters off their hands. Mister Doran was very anxious, indeed, this Sunday morning. He had made two attempts to shave, but his hand had been so unsteady that he had

been obliged to desist three days. Reddish beard fringed his jaws, and every two or three minutes a mist gathered on his glasses, so that he had to take them off and polish them with his pocket handkerchief. The recollection of his confession of the night before was a cause of acute pain to him. The priest had drawn out every ridiculous detail of the affair, and in the end had so magnified his sin that he was almost thankful at being afforded a loophole of reparation. The harm was done.

What could he do now but marry her or run away. He could not brazen it out. The affair would be sure to be talked of, and his employer would be certain to hear of it. Dublin is such a small city. Every one knows every one else's business. He felt his heart leap warmly in his throat as he heard in his excited imagination old mister Leonard calling out in his rasping voice, send mister Darrin here, please. All his long years of service gone for nothing, all his industry and

diligence thrown away. As a young man, he had sown his wild oats. Of course, he had boasted of his free thinking and denied the existence of God to his companions in public houses. But that was all past and done with. Nearly he still bought a copy of Reynold's newspaper every week, but he attended to his religious duties, and for nine tenths of the year lived a regular life. He had money enough to settle down on. It was not that but the family would look down on her.

First of all, there was her disreputable father, and then her mother's boarding house was beginning to get a certain fame. He had a notion that he was being had. He could imagine his friends talking of the affair and laughing. She was a little vulgar sometimes, she said, I seen, and if I had of known. But what would grammar matter? If you really loved her. He could not make up his mind whether to like her or despise her for what she had done. Of course, he had done it too.

His instinct urged him to remain free, not to marry. Once you are married, you are done for it said. While he was sitting helplessly on the side of the bed in shirt and trousers. She tapped lightly at his door and entered. She told him all that she had made a clean breast of it to her mother, and that her mother would speak with him. That morning. She cried and threw her arms round his neck, saying, Oh, Bob, bob, what am I to do? What am I to do?

At all? She would put an end to herself, she said. He comforted her, feebly, telling her not to cry, that it would be all right. Never fear. He felt against his shirt the agitation of her bosom. It was not altogether his fault that it had happened, he remembered well with the curious patient memory of the sulibate. The first casual caresses, her dress, her breath, her fingers had given him. Then, late one night, as he was undressing for bed, she

had tapped at his door timidly. She wanted to relight her candle at his, for hers had been blown out by a gust. It was her bath night. She wore a loose, open combing jacket of printed flannel. Her white in step shone in the opening of her slippers, and the blood glowed warmly behind her. Perfumed skin from her hands and wrists too, as she lit and steadied her candle, a faint perfume arose. On nights when he came in very late, it was she who warmed up his dinner.

He scarcely knew what he was eating, feeling her beside him alone at night in the sleeping house, and her thoughtfulness. If the night was anyway cold or wet or windy, there was sure to be a little tumbler of punch ready for him. Perhaps they could be happy together. They used to go upstairs together on tiptoe, each with a candle, and on the third landing exchange reluctant good nights. They used to kiss. He remembered well her eyes, the touch

of her hand, and his delirium. But delirium passes. He echoed her phrase, applying it to himself. What am I to do? The instinct of the celibate warned him to hold back, But the sin was there. Even his sense of honor told him that reparation must be made for such a sin. While he was sitting with her on the side of the bed, Mary came to the door and said that the misses wanted to see him in the parlor. He stood up to put on his coat and waistcoat, more helpless than ever. When he was dressed,

he went over to her to comfort her. It would be all right. Never fear. He left her crying on the bed and moaning softly, Oh my God. Going down the stairs, his glasses became so dimmed with moisture that he had to take them off and polished them. He longed to ascend through the roof and fly away to another country where he would never hear again of his trouble. And yet a force pushed him downstairs, step by step. The implacable faces of his employer and of the madam

stared upon his discomfiture. On the last flight of stairs, he passed Jack Mooney, who was coming up from the pantry nursing two bottles of bath. They saluted coldly, and the lover's eyes rested for a second or two on a thick bulldog face and a pair of thick short arms. When he reached the foot of the staircase, he glanced up and saw Jack regarding him from the door of the return room. Suddenly, he remembered the night when one of the music hall artistes, a little blonde Londoner, had

made a rather free allusion to Polly. The reunion had been almost broken up on account of Jack's violence. Everyone tried to quiet him. The music hall artiste, a little paler than usual, kept smiling and saying that there was no harm meant. But Jack kept shouting at him that if any fellow tried that sort of game on with his sister, he'd bloody well put his teeth down his throat so he would. Polly sat for a little time on the side of the bed, crying. Then she dried

her eyes and went over to the looking glass. She dipped the end of the towel in the water jug and refreshed her eyes with the cool water. She looked at herself in profile and readjusted a hairpin above her ear. Then she went back to the bed again and sat at the foot. She regarded the pillows for a long time, and the sight of them awakened in her mind secret, amiable memories. She rested the nape of her neck against the cool iron bed rail and fell into a reverie.

There was no longer any perturbation visible on her face. She waited on patiently, almost cheerfully without alarm, her memories gradually giving place to hopes and visions of the future. Her hopes and visions were so intricate that she no longer saw the white pillows on which her gaze was fixed, or remembered that she was waiting for anything. At last, she heard her mother calling. She started to her feet and ran to the banisters. Polly, Polly, yes, Mamma, come down,

dear mister Doran wants to speak to you. Then she remembered what she had been waiting for. End of the boarding house,